Chapter 11
At Moira’s orders, the flags flew at half-staff, and pipers played a requiem in the dawn light. She would do more, if the gods were willing, for those who gave their lives in this war. But for now, this was all that could be done to acknowledge the dead.
Standing in the courtyard, she was torn between grief and pride as she watched the men and women—the warriors—prepare for the long march east. She’d already bid her farewells to her women, and to Phelan, her cousin’s husband.
“Majesty.” Niall, the big guard who was now one of her trusted captains, stepped before her. “Should I order the gates opened?”
“In a moment. You wish you were going today.”
“I serve at your pleasure, my lady.”
“Your wishes are your own, Niall, and I understand them. But I need you here a bit longer. You’ll have your time soon enough.” They would all have their time, she thought. “Your brother and his family? How are they?”
“Safe, thanks to Lord Larkin and the lady Blair. Though my brother’s leg is healing, he won’t be able to fight on his feet.”
“There will be more to this than swinging a sword on the battlefield.”
“Aye.” His hand closed over the hilt of the blade at his side. “But in truth I’m ready to swing mine.”
She nodded. “You will.” She drew a breath. “Open the gates.”
For the second time she watched her people march away from the safety of the castle. It would be a scene repeated, she knew, until she herself rode through the gates, leaving behind the very old, the very young, the ill and infirm.
“It’s a clear day,” Larkin said from beside her. “They should reach the first base safely.”
Saying nothing, Moira looked over to where Sinann stood, a child in her arms, another in her belly, one more at her skirts. “She never wept.”
“She wouldn’t send Phelan off with tears.”
“They must be like a flood inside her, yet even now she won’t let her children see them. If courage of heart is a weapon, Larkin, we’ll sweep the enemy out of existence.”
When she turned to go he fell into step with her. “There wasn’t time,” he began, “to speak with you before. Or after.”
“Before the ceremony.” Her voice was cool as the morning now. “After you invaded my private life.”
“I didn’t invade it. I was just there, at what was an awkward time for everyone involved. Cian and I resolved matters between us.”
“Oh, did you?” Her eyebrows winged up as she spared him a glance. “Hardly surprising, as men will resolve matters between them one way or another.”
“Don’t take that royal tone with me.” He took her arm, drew her toward one of the gardens, and more privacy. “How, I’m asking you, would you expect me to react when I’ve seen you’ve been with him?”
“I suppose expecting you to be well-mannered enough to excuse yourself is too much to ask.”
“That’s damn right. When I think a man of damn near eternal experiences seduces you—”
“It was the other way around. Entirely.”
He flushed, scratched his head, turned a frustrated circle. “I don’t want to know the details of it, if you don’t mind. I’ve apologized to him.”
“And to me?”
“What do you want from me, Moira? I love you.”
“I expect you to understand I’m a woman grown, and one capable of making her own decisions about taking a lover. Don’t wince at the term,” she snapped impatiently. “I can rule, I can fight, I can die if need be, but your sensibilities are bruised at the thought I can have a lover?”
He thought it over. “Aye. But they’ll get over it. I only want, more than anything, never to see you hurt. Not in battle, not in the heart. Is that enough?”
Her feathers smoothed out, and her heart softened as it always did with him. “It must be, as I want the same for you. Larkin, would you say that I have a good, strong mind?”
“Almost too much of both at times.”
“In my mind, I know that I can’t have a life with Cian. In my head I understand that what I’ve done will one day cause me grief and pain and sorrow. But in my heart I need what I can have with him now.”
She brushed her fingers over the leaves of a flowering shrub. The leaves would fall, she thought, with the first frost. Many things would fall.
“When I put my head and heart together, I know, in both, that he and I are better for what we gave to each other. How can you love and turn away?”
“I don’ t know.”
She looked back toward the courtyard where people were once again going about their business, their routines. Life went on, she mused, whatever fell. They would see that life went on.
“Your sister watched her man ride away from her, and knows she might never see him alive again. But she didn’t weep in front of him, or in front of their children. When she weeps, she’ll weep alone. They’re her tears to shed. So will mine be, when this ends.”
“Will you do something for me?”
“If I can.”
He touched her cheek. “When you have tears, will you remember I have a shoulder for you?”
She smiled now. “I will.”
When they parted, she went to the parlor where she found Blair and Glenna already discussing the day’s schedule.
“Hoyt?” Moira asked as she poured herself tea.
“Hard at work. We had a slew of new weapons finished yesterday.” Glenna rubbed tired eyes. “We’ll be charming them twenty-four/seven. I’m going to work with some of those who’ll be staying here when the rest of us leave. Basic precautions, defensive, offensive tutorials.”
“I’ll help you with that. And you, Blair?”
“As soon as Larkin’s finished playing pimp, we’re—”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“He’s got a horny mare, and cleared it with Cian to have Vlad give her a bang. She doesn’t even get dinner and drinks first. I thought he told you.”
“No, we had other matters, and it must have slipped his mind. So he’s having Cian’s stallion stand as stud.” Her smile came slowly. Yes, life went on. “That’s a fine thing. Strong and hopeful—and damn clever, too, as he may be starting a brilliant line there. So, that’s what he was about, knocking on Cian’s door before sunrise.”
“He figured if Cian gave the go-ahead, he could—Wait.” Blair held up a hand. “Replay. How do you know he knocked on Cian’s door before sunrise?”
“Because I was just leaving the room when Larkin arrived.” Moira sipped her tea calmly while Blair slanted a look at Glenna, then puffed out her cheeks.
“Okay.”
“Aren’t you going to berate and damn Cian for seducing an innocent?”
Blair ran her tongue over her teeth. “You were in his room. I don’t think luring you in there to look at his etchings is his style.”
Moira slapped a hand to the table with satisfaction. “There! I knew a woman would have more sense—and a bit more respect for my own wiles. And you?” She lifted her eyebrows at Glenna. “Have you nothing to say about it?”
“You’re both going to be hurt, and you both know it already. So I’ll say I hope you’re both able to give and take whatever happiness you can, while you can.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you all right?” Glenna asked. “The first time is often difficult or a little disappointing.”
Now Moira smiled fully. “It was beautiful, and thrilling, and more than I imagined. Nothing I’d played through my mind was near the truth of it.”
“A guy isn’t good at it after a few hundred years’ practice,” Blair speculated. “He’d be hopeless. And Larkin walked in when... he must’ve flipped.”
“He punched Cian in the face, but they’ve made it up now. As men do when they pound each other. We’ve agreed that my choice of bedmate is mine, and moved on.”
There was a moment of unified silence as all three women rolled their eyes.
“There’s little time left before we leave the safety of this place. And, we can hope, plenty of time after Samhain to debate my choices.”
“Then I’ll move on, too,” Blair told her. “Larkin and I—after considerable browbeating by yours truly—are heading out in a couple of hours to see if we can wrangle ourselves some dragons. He’s still not sold on the idea, but he’s agreed we’ll give it a shot.”
“If it’s possible, it would be a great advantage for us.” Propping her chin on her fist, Moira turned it over in her mind. “I think we could cull out those we feel may not be as strong on the field. If they could ride... archers in the air.”
“Flaming arrows,” Blair said with a nod. “Their aim doesn’t have to be on the money.”
“As long as they don’t shoot the home team,” Glenna finished. “There isn’t much time left to train, but it’s worth the try.”
“Fire, aye,” Moira agreed. “It’s a strong weapon—stronger yet coming from the air. A pity you can’t charm the sun onto the tip of an arrow, Glenna, then this would be done.”
“I’m going to see if I can move Larkin along.” Blair got to her feet, hesitated. “You know, my first time, I was seventeen. The guy, he was in a hurry, and left me thinking at the end: So this is it? BFD. Something to be said for being initiated by someone who knows what he’s doing, and has a sense of style.”
“There is.” Moira’s smile was slow and satisfied. “There certainly is.” She sensed Blair and Glenna exchange another look over her head, so continued to drink her tea as Blair left the room.
“Do you love him, Moira?”
“I think there’s a part of me, inside me, that’s waited all my life to feel what I feel for him. What my mother felt for my father in the short time they had. What I know you feel for Hoyt. Do you think I only imagine it’s love because of what he is?”
“No, no, I don’t. I have strong, genuine feelings for him myself. They have everything to do with who he is. But, Moira, you know you won’t be able to have a life with him. That is because of what he is. What neither of you can change any more than the sun can fly on an arrow.”
“I listened to everything he and Blair have told us about... we’ll say his species.” And read, Moira thought, countless volumes of fact and lore. “I know he’ll never age. He’ll be forever as he was in that moment before he was changed. Young and strong and vital. I will change. Grow old, frailer, gray and lined. I’ll have sickness, and he never will.”
She rose now to walk to a window and the slant of sunlight. “Even if he loved as I love, it’s no life for either of us. He can’t stand here as I am now and feel the sun warm on my face. All we’d have is the dark. He can’t have children. So I won’t be able to take away from this even that much of him. I might think, just a year together, or five, or ten. Just that much. I might think and wish for that,” she murmured. “But however selfish my own needs might be, I have a duty.”
She turned back. “He could never stay here, and I can never go.”
“When I fell in love with Hoyt, and believed that we’d never be able to be together, it broke my heart every day.”
“But still, you loved him.”
“But still I loved him.”
Moira stood with the sun slanting at her back, glinting on her crown. “Morrigan said this is the time of knowing. I know my life would be less if I didn’t love him. The more life, the longer and harder we’ll fight to keep it. So, I have another weapon inside me. And I’ll use it.”
M oira discovered a long day of teaching children and the old how to defend themselves and each other from monsters was more tiring than hours of sweaty physical training. She hadn’t known how hard it would be to tell a child that monsters were real after all.
Her head ached from the questions, and her heart was bruised from the fear she’d seen.
She stepped out into the garden for some air, and to check the sky, again, for Larkin and Blair’s return.
“They’ll be back before sunset.”
She whirled at the sound of Cian’s voice. “What are you doing? It’s still day.”
“Shade’s deep here this time of day.” Still, he leaned back against the stones, well out of direct light. “It’s a pretty spot, a quiet one. And sooner or later, you end up here for a few minutes.”
“So, you’ve studied my habits.”
“It passes the time.”
“Glenna and I have been with the children and the old ones, teaching them how to defend themselves if there’s an attack here after we leave. We can’t spare many of the able-bodied to hold the castle.”
“The gates stay locked. Hoyt and Glenna will add a layer of protection. They’ll be safe enough.”
“And if we lose?”
“There’ll be nothing they can do.”
“I think there’s always something, if you put choice and a weapon in someone’s hands.” She walked toward him. “Did you come here to wait for me?”
“Yes.”
“Now that I’m here, what do you choose to do?”
He stayed where he was, but she could see the war inside him. Though the air suddenly seemed to lash and swirl with that battle, she stood calmly, her eyes grave and patient.
He took her with both hands, a quick and violent jerk that slammed her body to his. His mouth was ravenous.
“A fine choice,” she managed when she could speak again.
Then his lips were assaulting hers again, stealing both breath and will.
“Do you know what you’ve let loose here?” he demanded. Before she could speak, he turned, gripped her hands to drag her up onto his back.
“Cian, what—”
“You’d better hold on,” he ordered, interrupting her baffled laugh.
He leaped up. Her arms tightened around his neck as she gasped. He’d simply soared up, more than ten feet in the air from a stand, and was scaling the walls.
“What are you doing?” She risked a look down, felt her stomach shudder at the drop. “You could have warned me you’d lost your bloody mind.”
“I lost it when you walked into my room last night.” Now he swung through the window, flicked the drapes shut behind him and plunged them into the dark. “This is the price you pay for it.”
“If you’d wanted to come back inside, there are doors—”
She let out a quick cry of alarm when he swooped her up. It felt as though she was flying through the air, blind in the dark. Her next cry was of stunned excitement as she found herself under him on the bed, and his hands tugged aside clothes to take flesh.
“Wait. Wait. I can’t think. I can’t see.”
“Too late for both.” His mouth silenced her, and his hands drove her to a hard, violent crest.
Her body strained beneath his, and he knew she was reaching, reaching for the burning tip of that crest. Her breath sobbed against his lips as she reached it, and her body went limp.
He gripped her wrists in his hand, pulling her arms over her head. She was one long line of surrender now, and he sheathed himself in her.
She would have cried out again, but she had no voice. No sight, and with her hands captured, no hold. She could do nothing but feel as he plunged himself into her, battering her body with dark, desperate pleasure until she was writhing, then rising, then recklessly matching him beat for violent beat.
This time the hot tip of the crest shattered her.
She lay, scorched skin over melted bones, unable to move even when he left her to light the fire and candles.
“Choice isn’t always an issue,” he said, and she thought she heard liquid being poured into a cup. “Nor is it a weapon.”
She felt the cup bump against her hand, and managed to open her heavy eyes. She made some sound, took the cup, but wasn’t at all sure she could swallow any water.
Then she saw the raw red burn on his hand. She pushed up quickly, nearly sloshing water over the rim. “You’ve burned yourself. Let me see. I—” And she did see, that the mark was the shape of a cross.
“I would have taken it off.” Hurriedly, she pushed the cross and chain under her bodice.
“Small price to pay.” He lifted her wrist, noted the faint bruising. “I have less control with you than I’d like.”
“I like that you have less. Give me your hand. I have a little skill with healing.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Then give me your hand. It’s good practice for me.” She held hers out expectantly. After a moment he sat beside her, laid his hand in hers.
“I like that you have less,” she said again, drawing his eyes to hers. “I like knowing I can be wanted that much, that there’s something in me that pulls something in you enough that something strains, nearly snaps.”
“Dangerous enough when you’re dealing with a human. When a vampire’s control snaps, things die.”
“You’d never hurt me. You love me.”
His face went carefully blank. “Sex rarely has anything to do with—”
“Being inexperienced doesn’t make me stupid, or gullible. Is it better?”
“What?”
She smiled at him. “Your hand. The redness has eased.”
“It’s fine.” He drew it away. In fact there was no longer any burning. “You learn quickly.”
“I do. Learning is a passion for me. I’ll tell you what I’ve learned of you, when it comes to me. You love me.” Her lips were softly curved as she brushed at his hair. “You might have taken me last night—in fact you would have, with less resistance—if it had been just for sex. If it had been only need, only sex, you wouldn’t have taken me with such care, or trusted me enough to sleep awhile with me.”
She held up a finger before he could speak. “There’s more.”
“With you, there tends to be.”
She rose, straightening her clothes. “When Larkin came in, you did nothing to stop him from striking you. You love me, so you were guilty about taking what you saw as my innocence. You love me, so you’ve watched me enough to know one of my favorite places. You waited for me there, then you brought me here because you needed me. I pull at you, Cian, as you pull at me.”
She watched him as she sipped water. “You love me, as I love you.”
“To your peril.”
“And yours,” she said with a nod. “We live in perilous times.”
“Moira, this can never—”
“Don’t tell me never.” Passion vibrated in her voice and turned her eyes to hellsmoke. “I know. I know all about never. Tell me today. Between you and me let it be today. I have to fight for tomorrow, and the day after and into always. But with this, with you, it’s just today. Every today we can have.”
“Don’t cry. I’d rather have the burn than the tears.”
“I won’t.” She shut her eyes for a moment, and willed herself to keep her word. “I want you to tell me what you’ve shown me. I want you to tell me what I see when you look at me.”
“I love you.” He came to her, gently touched her face with his fingertips. “This face, those eyes, all that’s inside them. I love you. In a thousand years I’ve never loved another.”
She took his hand, pressed her lips to it. “Oh! Look. There’s no burn now. Love healed you. The strongest magic.”
“Moira.” He kept her hand in his, then laid hers against his chest. “If it beat, it would beat for you.”
Tears stung her eyes again. “Your heart may be still, but it isn’t empty. It isn’t silent because it speaks to me.”
“And that’s enough?”
“Nothing will ever be enough, but it will do. Come, we’ll—”
She broke off when she heard shouting from outside. Turning, she rushed to the window, drew back one of the drapes. Her hand went to her throat. “Cian, come look. The sun’s low enough. Come look.”
The sky was full of dragons. Emerald and ruby and gold, their sleek bodies soared above the castle like flashing jewels in the softening light. And their trumpeting calls were like a song.
“Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?”
When his hand laid on her shoulder, Moira reached up, clasped it. “Listen how the people cheer them. Look at the children running and laughing. It’s the sound of hope, Cian. The sound, the sight.”
“Getting them here, and getting them to be ridden, and to respond in battle like warhorses, two different matters, Moira. But yes, it’s a beautiful sight, and a hopeful sound.”
She watched as they began to land. “In all your years, I imagine there’s little you haven’t done.”
“Little,” he agreed, then had to smile. “But no, I’ve never ridden a dragon. And yeah, damn right I want to. Let’s go down.”
There was still enough sunlight that he needed the bloody cloak in open spaces. But despite it, Cian discovered he could still be enchanted and surprised—when he looked into a young dragon’s golden eye.
Their sinuous bodies were covered in large, jewel-toned scales that were smooth as glass to the touch. Their wings were like gossamer, and kept close into the body when they grazed along the ground. But it was the eyes that captivated him. They seemed to be alive with interest and intelligence, even humor.
“Figured the younger ones would be easier to train,” Blair said to him as they stood, watching. “Larkin’s best at communicating with them, even in his regular form. They trust him.”
“Which is making it harder on him to use them in battle.”
“Yeah, my guy’s a softie, and we went around and around about it. He was hoping to convince everyone we could use them for transportation only. But they could make a hell of a difference on the field. Or above it. Still, I have to admit, I get a little twinge at the idea myself.”
“They’re beautiful—and unspoiled.”
“We’re going to change the second part.” Blair let out a sigh. “Everything’s a weapon,” she murmured. “Anyway, want to go up?”
“Bet your ass.”
“First flight’s with me. Yeah, yeah,” she said when she saw the objection on his face. “You pilot your own plane, ride horses, leap tall buildings in a single bound. But you’ve never ridden a dragon, so you’re not going solo yet.”
She walked slowly toward one of ruby and silver. She’d ridden it back, and still held out her hand so it would test her scent. “Go ahead, let her get acquainted.”
“Her?”
“Yeah, I checked out the plumbing.” Blair grinned. “Couldn’t help it.”
Cian laid his hand on the dragon’s side, worked his way slowly to the head. “Well now, aren’t you a gorgeous one.” He began to murmur to her in Irish. She responded with what could only be termed a flirtatious swish of her tail.
“Hoyt’s got the same way with them you do.” Blair nodded toward where Hoyt was stroking sapphire scales. “Must be a family trait.”
“Hmm. Now why is it that Her Majesty there is mounting one by herself?”
“She’s ridden a dragon before. That is, she’s ridden Larkin in dragon form, so she knows the ropes. Not all she’s riding lately.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Just saying. You two look a lot more relaxed than either of you did yesterday.” She gave him a wide, toothy grin, then swung onto the dragon. “Alley-oop.”
He mounted the same way he’d scaled the walls. With an easy and fluid leap. “Sturdy,” Cian commented. “More comfortable than they look. Not so very different from horseback all in all.”
“Yeah, if you’re talking Pegasus. Anyway, you don’t give them a little kick like a horse or cluck. You just—”
Blair demonstrated by leaning down on the dragon’s neck, gliding a hand over its throat. With a sound like silk billowing, it spread its wings. And it rose up into the sky.
“Live long enough,” Cian said behind Blair, “you do every damn thing.”
“This has got to be one of the best. There are still logistics. The care and feeding, dragon poop.”
“I bet it’ll make the roses bloom.”
She threw back her head and laughed. “Could be. We’ve got to train them, and their riders. But these beauties catch on fast. Watch.” She leaned to the right, and the dragon swerved gently to follow her direction.
“A bit like riding a motorcycle.”
“Some of that principle. Lean into the turns. Look at Larkin. That showoff.”
He was riding a huge gold, and doing fancy loops and turns.
“Sun’s nearly set,” Cian commented. “Give it a few minutes, so I won’t fry, and we’ll give him a run for his money.”
Blair shot a look over her shoulder. “You got it. Going to say something.”
“When did you not?”
“She’s carrying the weight of the fricking world. If what you two have going lightens that a little, I’m for it. Being with Larkin shifted some of mine, so I hope it’s working for the two of you.”
“You surprise me, demon hunter.”
“I surprise myself, vampire, but there it is. Sun’s down. You ready to rock?”
With enormous relief, he shoved back the hood of the cloak. “Let’s show your cowboy some real moves.”